Son's last memory of father is gun he put to own head

Cop drank partly because of work -- then after retiring

Published 10:00 pm, Tuesday, August 7, 2007

The last memory Mike Hartley has of his father is one he wishes he could forget: the moment his father -- a retired lieutenant and chronic alcoholic -- put a gun to his head and squeezed the trigger.

From that point on, Mike's memory goes understandably black. After all, the suicide bullet -- which ripped through his father's head and accidentally into his own -- killed Mike, too.

Clinically dead, Mike was brought back to life on an operating table. He emerged from a coma with severe head and spinal injuries -- and the memory of that moment. "It will stick with me the rest of my life," he says.

Walter drank in part because of stresses of police work, Mike says. Though he quit the bottle for a few years, he relapsed after retiring. Drinking seemed a replacement for the only job he knew. But it took a toll: marital separation and problems with his two sons and the law.

In 1999, Walter was arrested for DUI and assaulting the Rainier cop who stopped him. Two years later, it happened again. On Aug. 22, 2001, when Lacey police responded to a minor traffic wreck involving Walter, he drunkenly yelled at them, "I'm a ... retired Lacey police lieutenant, I will do whatever ... I want," reports say. He demanded favors; when he didn't get them, he grabbed and poked a police employee. He was arrested again for DUI and assault.

The next day, his oldest son picked him up from jail. At home, Walter grabbed a gun. Mike, the youngest, tried talking sense into him. "He just kept telling me, 'It's not worth it anymore.' That's when I reached for the gun, and he just pulled the trigger."

Six years and 13 surgeries later, Mike is a married military contractor. He lost his dad and part of his jaw, but he's gained understanding.

"There are other police officers that drink excessively because of stress. They can bring that home with them, to their families. They need help," he says. "I would never blame my dad for what happened. He was a completely different person at that point."